Clyde Takeguchi Shihan’s Seminar was Great!

I had an amazing trip to Ashland this weekend for Clyde Takeguchi Shihan‘s seminar. Takeguchi Shihan was, as always, a great teacher and terrific fellow.

As great as the training was, the trip was made immeasurably better by the fact that 3 other dojo members made the trip Gabe Cuppet, Ian Isbell and Jane Hill.

We worked on very interesting things. Takeguchi Shihan emphasizes balance-taking. In particular, he uses tipping his attacker to one side. In other words when uke attacks, work to raise one of uke’s shoulders and tip him or her to that side. (This is an extremely over-simplified description!) Takeguchi Shihan subtly shifts his own weight to change the angles and center of balance in any encounter — giving him a tremendous power advantage.

Jane and I will be sharing a lot of these ideas this week — new understandings and approaches to sumio toshi (corner drop), tenchi nage (heave and earth) and several fascinating and fun jo (staff) exercises and techniques.